We Are the Living

Viking Press published the collection in September 1933. Sixteen of its twenty stories had been previously published in various magazines, while four—"The Medicine Man," "Meddlesome Jack," "The Grass Fire," and "A Woman in the House"—were new.^[1]

Some stories in the collection are humorous or satirical, while others are lyrical, romantic and/or tragic. Several of them are laid against the background of the lives of ordinary people in the contemporary US South,^[2] the social milieu most familiar to the author; some are specifically located in his home state of Georgia.

The stories in the book include:

• "Warm River"
• "We Are Looking at You, Agnes"
• "The People's Choice"
• "Indian Summer"
• "Rachel"
• "The Medicine Man"
• "Picking Cotton"
• "Meddlesome Jack"
• "The Picture"
• "Yellow Girl"
• "August Afternoon"
• "Mama's Little Girl"
• "The First Autumn"
• "After-Image"
• "Crown-Fire"
• "The Empty Room"
• "Over the Green Mountains"
• "The Grass Fire"
• "A Woman in the House"
• "Country Full of Swedes"